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  As they pulled into the junkyard— Hensleys Salvage, according to the crudely painted sign— Elizabeth interrupted Laurel’s exhaustive analysis of the relation of time and place to the creation of art— true art, Mum, not just commercial crap—to ask, “What about The 3? Do you know if Boz is back? I didn’t see anyone at their house this morning. And what was the point of that whole—”

  But Laurel had spotted her friend, a short, swarthy man in his forties, and was out of the jeep and bounding toward him. He began shouting and gesticulating wildly in response to her greeting, but Laurel simply looked amused. Elizabeth parked her car and hurried toward the pair.

  “Mum, this is Rafiq. Rafiq, this is my mother, Elizabeth. I brought her to see the crushing. Or she brought me.”

  Rafiq nodded briefly in Elizabeth’s general direction. “’Allo, Laurel’s mother.” His voice was mournful and his dark eyes tragic. He closed his eyes and hit his forehead with the back of his hand. “Laurel, I tell you…is already done. That Travis he do it already. Is ruined. No time portal.”

  A young man with a substantial beer gut and a Caterpillar cap emerged from behind a pile of wrecked cars, wiping his hands on his grease-encrusted jeans. “I didn’t do no such thing, Ray-fiq. I thought you come durin’ the weekend and done it yoreself.” A massive rottweiler followed him, eyeing the strangers coldly.

  “No matter, is ruined.” Rafiq flung up his hands, then folded his arms across his chest and turned his back.

  “Let’s just go take a look at it.” Laurel touched his shoulder gently. “Did you set it up yourself and put it in the crusher?”

  “Of course. Was all ready, waiting for noon. I get it ready Friday night but the stars say Monday noon is best for creation. So I go home, drink beer, wait for Monday. Travis never crush on Monday, so I think is okay. And now…”

  He shrugged and began to walk toward the crusher, a strange-looking, iron, box-shaped affair. They followed him, picking their way around the carcasses of wrecked and rusting cars that littered the oil-soaked junkyard dirt. The harsh smell of burned motor oil mingled with the sickly-sweet scent of corruption.

  “That dog of Travis, it kill the rats but do not eat them. They sometimes run under the cars to die. Is why such a stink,” Rafiq explained matter-of-factly.

  The crusher was surrounded by hydraulic hoses and huge pistons and seemed to be leaking oil. Rafiq stood in front of it, hands on hips, his face a picture of disgust.

  “Rafiq, why don’t you go on and take the piece out of the crusher and let us see it? I know Mum would be interested. And it’s going to look awesome, no matter who pushed the button or when they did it.”

  “Okay.” The man’s voice was listless. “But without proper timing, is not art. Is just junk, a dead thing.” He pushed a button at one side of the contraption and with a series of mournful creaks and groans, the compressing walls drew back to reveal a rectangular crumple that was the end result of thousands of pounds of pressure on a metallic blue Pontiac. The planes of shiny blue and silver interspersed with rusty blacks and browns were rather attractive, Elizabeth thought, though she couldn’t quite see it sitting in her living room.

  “I like that splotch of red down near the bottom.” Elizabeth’s Southern-lady upbringing compelled her to find some positive comment to make. “It…ah…really ties the whole thing together and sets off the…sets off the…”

  She was saved from having to complete her sentence for, as they all drew closer to the block of crushed steel and chrome, it became obvious that the dark clots pooled beneath the “sculpture” weren’t just oil and brake fluid. The splotch of red that Elizabeth had admired was a cowboy boot— attached to a twisted black-clad leg that disappeared into the tangle of metal.

  CHAPTER 3

  BLACK ROSES

  (MONDAY, AUGUST 29)

  WHEN THE POLICE HAD FINISHED THEIR QUESTIONS and dismissed Elizabeth and Laurel, neither was in the mood for lunch. “I don’t want to go back to my studio, Mum.” Laurel paused with her hand on the jeep’s door. “At least not until they find out for sure who that is— was—in the car. All morning everyone in the building kept showing up in my studio to talk about The 3 and Strike on Box and they all think I know where Boz is. And now— oh, shit— I don’t even want to think about it.”

  Her blue eyes were clouded as she pulled her coppery dreadlocks back into a ponytail, securing it with a piece of twine from her pocket. Sighing, she added, “I really don’t want to have to be there, Mum. And Milo said there’s no way he can get my van ready till tomorrow. Could we just go back to my apartment? We can fix some coffee or something. I’ll ride my bike in to work tonight and out to the studio in the morning.”

  They drove in somber silence back to Laurel’s apartment. Sitting at the little table by the kitchen window, Elizabeth studied her daughter’s face, pale against the cheerful coral walls that were the legacy of a previous tenant. Laurel peered doubtfully into her refrigerator. “How about iced tea instead of coffee? It’s awfully hot.” Without waiting for an answer, she poured the tea into two tall glasses, added ice, and set the glasses on the table, pushing aside a litter of colored pencils and sketch pads. Then she retrieved a paring knife from a jumble of dishes in the sink, gave it a perfunctory rinse, and cut a lime into wedges, which she placed carefully on the table. “I don’t know— do you want a sandwich or something? I’ve got some pimento cheese….”

  “No thanks, Laur. This tea looks good though.” Elizabeth took a sip and fixed her gaze on her daughter, who had slumped wearily into the opposite chair. “Did you tell the police everything you knew about the plan Boz and the other two had made?”

  “Mum, of course I did! About how they’d planned the big scene in the gallery and how Boz was going to disappear and make it look like he had been murdered. They wanted it to look like Aidan did it but then Boz was going to reappear just in time to keep Aidan out of jail.”

  She leaned toward her mother and planted her elbows on the table. “It was a great idea— a way to get them publicity— you know, start a buzz. They were hoping for an article in Art World and maybe an invitation to one of the big New York galleries. Carter Dixon— he’s the owner of the QuerY, where the show of the photographs is supposed to be— has more connections than you might think. I’m not sure…maybe the phony murder bit was Carter’s idea. Anyway, they had some friends shooting the whole thing on videotape and stills. Besides, you said you overheard them talking about their plan. Isn’t that corrob— what’s it…corroborating evidence?”

  Elizabeth looked out the window that overlooked busy Charlotte Street. The comforting aroma of fresh bread drifted up from the bakery below and a jogger chugged along the tree-shaded sidewalk across the street. Just an ordinary day. Except— except— She turned back to face the young woman whose deep blue eyes, so like her own, were glaring at her.

  “Sweetie, I’m not suggesting you were lying.” Elizabeth squeezed a lime quarter into her tea, then stirred it thoughtfully with her finger. “I just wondered if you left out anything. Is there any possibility this was an accident? Could Boz have gone to the junkyard to hide out and gotten in the car and—”

  “Mum, for one thing, the car was already sitting in the crusher on Friday night. You heard what Rafiq said.”

  “That’s right.” Elizabeth drew a spiral in the dewy condensation blooming on the side of her glass. “And both Rafiq and the guy who runs the junkyard deny having operated the crusher.” Laurel was back at the refrigerator. She refilled her glass, then pulled out a container of bright orange pimento cheese and plopped it, along with the paring knife and a bag of hard rolls, in front of her mother.

  “We don’t know for sure that it was Boz in that car,” Laurel said. “He may be back at Dessie’s place now, having a good laugh with Kyra and Aidan.”

  Elizabeth thought that this was highly unlikely but didn’t say so. “Laur, what do you know about Kyra and Aidan and Boz? Where are they from, who are their folks?” God, I s
ound just like my mother, an inner voice lamented.

  Laurel wrinkled her brow and began to spread pimento cheese on one of the rolls. “I don’t really know much about the guys, not even their last names. My generation isn’t into all that ‘who’s your family’ stuff that you older people care so much about. I mean, it’s who a person is themselves and what they do that matters, especially in art. I mean—”

  “Laurel, sweetie, just indulge me. Tell me what you do know.”

  “Okay, let me think.” Laurel set down her roll untasted and closed her eyes. “Well, I do know that Aidan grew up in Asheville and his mother lives here. He calls her an aging hippie…I think she works at Mama Earth Co-op. He’s never mentioned a father. Oh yeah— this is cool— Aidan and his mom lived in India for a few years— in an ashram run by some holy guy. Aidan says she’s still really into that stuff. But he thinks it’s all a little sketchy. And Aidan went to college somewhere up north…. I think on an art scholarship…. I’m pretty sure Boz didn’t go to college…. He used to tease Aidan and call him a preppie…. Boz says you can’t learn to be an artist in school.”

  “So what do you know about Boz’s background?” Elizabeth suppressed the desire to shake her daughter, whose education had included a pricey two-year stint at Savannah College of Art and Design, thanks to a loan that Elizabeth was still paying off.

  “Boz?” Laurel’s eyes opened and she began to devour her sandwich. Between bites she continued the story. “Well, Boz just rolled into Asheville a few years ago and starting hanging with all the people who were doing the really experimental stuff. He didn’t have anything but a motorcycle and a sleeping bag. I heard he’d lived in the Southwest and done earth art but that all the photographs and drawings of his best work had been destroyed in a fire. He also said that he’d worked on an oil rig in Texas.”

  Laurel smiled but her face was sad. “You never knew when Boz was telling the truth. He could be the biggest bullshitter in the world. But he was so…so confident about his art that everyone just accepted him.” She began to twist a silver ring near the end of one of her dreadlocks as she continued.

  “He crashed with Aidan and Kyra that first winter; he’d had a squat in one of the abandoned buildings down in the District, but when it got cold they felt sorry for him and let him move into their studio. Plus they’d started doing art together as The 3. Boz really energized Kyra and Aidan—”

  “And they all three got along? Even after Kyra switched her…her attentions from Aidan to Boz?” And now I sound like someone’s maiden aunt. Elizabeth winced.

  “Well, by then they were getting established as The 3 and none of them really wanted to go it alone. Boz has…had a kind of funky charm; he can annoy you one minute, then be really nice the next. And with Boz you never know what will happen next— kind of like a carnival ride— scary but exciting.”

  “What about Kyra?” Elizabeth went on, trying to turn their thoughts from the crushed car and its mangled occupant. A team of men armed with acetylene torches had been at work on the blue Pontiac when she and Laurel had finally been allowed to leave the junkyard.

  “Kyra’s really sweet.” There was no hesitation in Laurel’s reply. “I actually don’t know the guys very well but I got to know Kyra when she worked with me on a project at the Women’s Center. She’s had a horrible life and I think being part of The 3 was the closest she’s ever come to a real family.”

  “What do you mean? I guess I assumed she was from a wealthy background— that little sports car she drives— something Italian, is it? Ben said it was really expensive.”

  “Oh, she’s got money.” Laurel jumped up to refill Elizabeth’s glass, adding more ice from the refrigerator’s tiny freezer. “Her dad is Marvin Peterson. You’ve probably heard of him. Big guy in Asheville. But Kyra’s mom was murdered six or seven years ago. There were lots of newspaper stories about it; Kyra has a whole scrapbook full of them. It was in the news for weeks.”

  Marvin Peterson. Elizabeth remembered the story; the murder had been a hot topic around Asheville at the time, and a friend who worked at a women’s shelter where Mrs. Peterson volunteered had, during one long lunch, confided the entire sad tale.

  Peterson was a wealthy man, rather vaguely identified as an investment consultant. His background was mysterious; he had appeared on the scene in Asheville when in his twenties and had been involved in various quasi-legal businesses, each one a little more successful and a little less shady than the previous. Soon he had gained a reputation as a benefactor of various charitable and cultural organizations and had eventually begun to move in the upper echelons of Asheville society. His generosity and his political power won (some said bought) him many friends, and his handsome face and impeccable demeanor made him welcome in the most exclusive society. Even so, there had been considerable muttering when he married the lovely Rose Sheffield, debutante daughter of one of Asheville’s oldest families. It was whispered that the marriage had been “necessary, my dear, if you know what I mean,” but their only child, a daughter, had been born a decorous year and a half after the wedding, thereby depriving their fellow country club members of that particular topic of speculation. The Petersons’ palatial Italianate house in Biltmore Forest was always on offer for charitable functions, and the oddly paired Marvin and Rose seemed as devoted a couple as society could wish. Their daughter, little Kyra, was often seen at plays and concerts with her parents, and it was frequently remarked how much this golden-haired child resembled her beautiful mother.

  As the years went by, the Petersons had continued to play a leading role in Asheville society. Kyra seemed to float through life on the wings of privilege, effortlessly attaining the top rank in her local prep school, spending vacations with her mother at European resorts in winter, finally enrolling at Vassar. Her summers were devoted to honing her considerable equestrian skills. With the help of her private instructor (himself a former Olympian) and Marvin’s purchase of two staggeringly expensive horses, Kyra had been on her way to becoming the youngest member of the U.S. Equestrian Team when a tragic stable fire had destroyed her horses and, it was said, the young woman’s desire to ride.

  Rose Peterson had always been deeply involved in various charities, both as a patron and as an organizer of lavish fund-raisers. When Kyra went off to college, Rose began to seek more responsibility in the hands-on side of some of her special interests, especially the women’s shelter. She began by working the hotline; in time she was helping injured women face-to-face.

  “A real angel,” Elizabeth’s friend had said. “It was amazing, considering her background, how well she could relate to our clients. Rose had a gift of empathy and compassion that was truly astonishing. I saw her once, hugging some poor woman whose boyfriend had just knocked her front teeth out. The woman was dripping blood all over Rose’s beautiful clothes, but Rose just ignored it.”

  And if Marvin Peterson was often away on business, well, that was just the price to be paid for the house, the travel, the schools, the horses— in short, for the lifestyle the Peterson family enjoyed.

  Then one day, while Marvin was away on one of his lengthy business trips, Rose Peterson was discovered in her bed, killed with a single bullet to the back of the head. “Execution style,” the papers called it, and the twenty-year-old Kyra, at home on semester break from Vassar, had been the one who found her mother.

  The murderer was still at large. None of Rose’s many valuable pieces of jewelry had been touched; nothing was missing. The servants had, with the exception of the housekeeper, all been out on various errands, and the housekeeper, busy with accounts in her office at the time of the murder, had heard and seen nothing. Marvin Peterson, summoned home from wherever he had been, was distraught and seemingly inconsolable. At the graveside his daughter was seen to support him as he sagged helplessly against her when the mahogany casket with its blanket of shell-pink roses was lowered into the red clay.

  He had remarried six weeks later and installed his new wife
(who had been first his secretary and then, for the past five years, his mistress) in the house that he had shared with Rose. It soon became clear that Peterson’s many “business” trips had simply been cover-ups for the time he spent with his mistress in a nearby town. His neighbors in the exclusive section of Flat Rock where he maintained the mistress and a second home knew them as Mr. and Mrs. Max Parker.

  Laurel picked up the story. “Well, that’s when Kyra moved out. She told me that when he moved the bimbo in, she had to get out of there. She said that the housekeeper, who’d been with them forever, left too. Oh, Kyra’s father gives her a huge allowance— she calls it ‘guilt money’— but she never goes back home. And when her father remarried, she dyed her hair black, and started getting all those tatts.”

  “Tatts?”

  “Oh, Mum, as in ‘tattoos.’ Haven’t you noticed, they’re all black roses? Like, in memory of her mother. First she got one over her heart, then one on her right calf, then a circle of black rosebuds around her left ankle, then—”

  Elizabeth was somewhat neutral on the subject of tattoos, seeing them as a rather silly manifestation of herd mentality. Poor things, their parents were long-haired hippies who advocated “doing your own thing.” How do you rebel against that? But… “Sounds pretty extreme to me.”

  “Oh, that’s the point. You see, Kyra has dinner with her father four times a year— she has to if she wants to collect her allowance— and she gets a fresh tattoo every time, right before she meets him. She says she wants him to see that she hasn’t forgotten her mother, even if he has. One time, she said, the new tattoo was actually oozing blood and it bothered her father so much that he couldn’t eat his dinner.”